| Hi all, As colleagues of mine working in relevant fields, I wanted to give you all a heads up on the new project I’m working on related to media reform and democracy. The Social Science Research Council (http://www.ssrc.org), a distinguished non-profit that supports social science research in the public interest, has hired me as the program coordinator of their "Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere" program (http://www.ssrc.org/programs/media/ ). My job will be to help bring together media reform advocates with media researchers so they can collaborate more effectively together. There is apparently a huge need for better coordination and communication among activists and academics in the field of media reform. Our main mechanism for facilitating this will be the launch next month of an online “Media Research Hub” that will support a broad community of media reform actors with various tools for collaboration and information sharing. It's a rather dramatic departure from my United Nations portfolio of the past 10 years or so. But I will remain engaged with international public policy issues, which is wonderful. And I will get to work on cutting-edge stuff like the effect of the blogosphere on traditional media, broadband access to underserved areas, community wifi, low power FM, and lots of other cool new media areas. The good news is that we have the funding to support various activities such as sponsoring targeted research, supporting interns, and organizing physical meetings to link key actors. But as a first step we are going to want to make sure that we are linking to the most relevant and active networks of media reform activists and academics. If you have suggestions for networks and coalitions that I should plug into, particularly outside of the US, that would be really helpful. (Note that my new work contact details are below.) Regards and Do Stay in Touch, Rik
Rik Panganiban Program Coordinator Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere Social Science Research Council 810 Seventh Avenue, 31st Floor New York NY 10019 PH: 212.377.2700 x 644 FX: 212.245.4232
| 
